Obese and looking to start Weight Lifting

Everyones bodies are different and the most important thing is to find something that works for you personally to lose weight based on your own trials and errors. There are no right answers for everyone, there are only right answers for you personally that you will discover over time. Also, you cannot outrun the fork no matter what you do so diet is the most important thing to losing weight.

That said I'll do my best to tell you what I have learned and what has been working for me.
Building muscle, "getting ripped, " "bulking up," ect. are all basically the same thing. Muscle is more dense than fat and therefore lifting weights will cause your "weight loss" to slow as you gain more muscle. BUT! more muscle increases the bodies metabolism and helps you work out longer/more intense and therefore makes FAT loss occur more quickly! You don't care what the scale says because the scale lies, you care how you look and building muscle is going to help that a bunch.

Your #1 goal when lifting is not to hurt yourself because if you do you'll slow down the entire process, correct form is the most important thing to not get hurt and there are tons of utube vids out there to show proper form on different lifts. Stick to free-weights as they'll decrease your chances of injury by building stabilizer muscles (the machine won't kill you, but if you have some dumbells to substitute they will help build muscles the machine will not). Never work out the same muscle group two days in a row, lifting breaks down muscles they grow as you allow them to heal for at least 24 hrs.

To build and tone muscles you always want to lift heavy (which will inherently mean you do fewer reps). Don't listen to anyone that tells you to not lift heavy, they're just wrong. You want to aim for something like 3 sets of 6 reps for every exercise you do and the only way to find out what weight that is for you is trial and error. I don't work out my legs because I have a bad knee that I don't want to stress and stick to walking to strengthen them. Every other day I do bench (chest/shoulders), curls (bicept), fly (chest/shoulders), and tricep extensions. I'm really impressed with the progress my arms and shoulders have made. I'll probably be happier with the chest results once I lose more weight.

No cardio is bad for weight loss. Do it as much as you want to/can.

Eat enough calories to maintain a deficit (figure out what works best for you based on how rapidly you are losing), I typically don't worry about eating back exercise calories, but to each their own. I suggest avoiding processed foods (any words on the nutrition facts you wouldn't have in your kitchen) and anything with a lot of carbs or sugars that isn't a real veggie or fruit. I really like what I've read on the Paleo diet. I try my best, but it's pretty hard to stick to.

Do whatever stops you from giving up, make little progress at a time, don't overwhelm yourself and good luck man!

At your size a lot of the "talking points" that get thrown around fitness sites do not apply. You don't need to "build muscle for fat burning". At 400+ pounds, you have plenty of muscle. In fact, if you are successful at losing a lot of weight, you will likely lose a considerable amount of muscle as your body "resizes" itself.

Strength training still has important benefits in your case, it's just that "muscle building" is not among them at this time. The most important goal right now is maximizing calorie burn in order to maintain a long-term calorie deficit. As a beginner you also want to minimize the risk of injury, increase body and muscle awareness, enhance joint stability, etc.

So, one of the first goals of a lifting program is to maximize caloric burn. That means, at first, lower intensity and higher reps (15 rep range). This has several advantages: You burn a lot more calories, both during the lifting itself and by requiring less recovery time. You have a much lower risk of injury. You get faster reinforcement for "successful' workouts, without feeling beat up. You can focus on form and develop a better awareness of how the muscles work, thus developing a good base for when you move to a more aggressive lifting stage.

The modality you use at this time -- machines, free weights, etc--is irrelevant. Do whatever is comfortable. Personally, I expect you might find it more comfortable to do a lot of exercises using a functional trainer -- a cable-based machine that allows one to perform a large number of exercises but does not require one to "fit" into a confined space.

Pick some general exercises that involve large muscle groups--6-10 is plenty--and work up to 3-4 sets. After several weeks, esp if you have lost some weight and are feeling more comfortable, you can progress to some heavier weights.

And keep doing cardio--the same rule kind of applies: put in enough work to generate a good chunk of calories that will contribute to your deficit. This will mean more endurance training at first, but some threshold-level interval workouts can be included a couple of times per week. These will provide variety and well as boost your overall fitness level.

If you want more information, a good review can be found at www.bodyrecomposition.com. Use the search feature to look up "Training the Obese Beginner" and follow all the links--including some of the additional ones in the articles.